Culture – Page 8 – Nicolas Demers

Vancouver Queer Film Festival Review: Head of the Class

This excellent sampling of shorts presented by Out in Schools to BC students made laugh, made me squee, and made me think.

Change

In 2008, America elected its first Black president. At the same time, California voted by a thin margin to turn back the clock on same-sex marriage. This film takes place on Election Day and follows an inner-city Black high school student. Too young to vote, he nevertheless cares deeply about the election and believes Obama is the best choice for the country. However, of all his family he is the only one to oppose Prop 8, and only his little sister knows he’s gay; of all his friends he is the only one to not be a homophobic macho jackass planning to graffiti the class’s out gay student’s house.

When Obama is elected, it feels to his family like the dawning of a new age. When it turns out Prop 8 passed, it feels to him like things maybe haven’t changed that much. And when his friends do end up vandalising his friend’s house, he decides to stop hiding…

This was a very harsh and challenging film, smartly dealing with multiple issues of race, religion and sexuality. The change promised by Obama is hard and sometimes uneven, and there are no easy answers.

Rise Against Homophobia National Youth Short Video Contest Winners

The contest went national this year, with 260 submissions from (I believe) 8 provinces total. They were all excellent and gave me real hope for the future, but my favourite is the hilarious and nerdy The Olive Principle.

Only Fags Listen to Pop Music

As much as I despise Britney, I have to admit Stronger is pretty catchy, and can be a good anthem. The message is: be yourself and screw the haters, even if it means loving bad pop.

The Queen

A very funny little short, about a nerdy boy who draws muscly superheroes in his textbooks and fantasises about being the prom queen.

I Don’t Want To Go Back Alone / Eu Não Quero Voltar Sozinho

A super-sweet high-school romance from Brazil, between a blind student and the handsome new boy in school. Funny and endearing, and so far my favourite short film of the festival.

Flyer

A surreal little short about… well, I’m not totally sure. Denial and subconsciously outing yourself, probably. I think I get it, but it didn’t really work for me.

Vancouver Queer Film Festival Review: La fille de Montréal

La fille de Montréal is a beautiful celebration of Montreal, of life, and the things that make life worth living: friends, silly hats, goofy old art projects, dancing to bad French 80s pop, discussing the voices of trees, and teaching the younger generation about ancient Roman erotica.

God, now I miss Montreal! I never lived there, mind you, but it’s where my father’s side of the family comes from, and I’ve visited lots of times. I remember well the apartment buildings seen in the movie, with their dark brick fronts and outdoor winding staircases (though my grandparents and brother lived in Verdun, not the Plateau. And my other brother later lived in Ahuntsic, which is completely different. But I digress.)

Our intrepid heroine Ariane has lived in the same tiny, shabby apartment in downtown Montreal for twenty-five years. The paint is peeling, the plumbing is a joke, the stairs are narrow and steep. On the other hand, it’s got an amazing view of the nearby rooftops and a few trees, terrific natural light almost all day but especially in the morning, and it’s perfectly situated in the lively, diverse Plateau Mont-Royal neighbourhood. But one day she gets an eviction notice. Should she fight it, and probably lose? Or should she take this as an opportunity to do a major spring cleaning and take root someplace else?

La fille de Montréal is a beautiful celebration of Montreal, of life, and the things that make life worth living: friends, silly hats, friends in silly hats, goofy old art projects, dancing to bad French 80s pop, discussing the voices of trees, and teaching the younger generation about ancient Roman erotica. Everything Ariane uncovers and packs is a trigger for fond reminiscing or an outright flashback, like the friends’ conversation about Pope John-Paul II’s visit to Montreal in ’83 or ’84 (He came to Ottawa as well, and had a big open-air mass on the Lebreton Plains. And yes, my family and I went. A lot of the faithful wore JPII-branded t-shirts or waved around pennants with his face on it. Catholics are classy.)

The film is about celebrating your roots. Not just where you come from, though there is some of that, but being mindful of what nourishes you now—in other words, count your blessings. But also, that you shouldn’t be too tied to your roots, that it’s okay to sometimes take a chance and spread your wings. As Ariane despairs of finding a decent and affordable place in the Plateau, she gradually casts her net wider but categorically refuses to consider the suburbs. She loves walking, she loves shopping at the tiny family-owned stores just down the street, she couldn’t deal with soulless cookie-cutter residential-only neighbourhoods.

But the pickings are slim, and eventually Ariane considers something different: a house in the country about an hour out of Montreal. It’s got a garden, fruit trees, and gorgeous lilac bushes. Plus, room for all her stuff. After much thought, she decides to try the country. If it doesn’t work out she can move back, but the movie ends with her settling in nicely, and thinking it’ll be all right.

So, take a chance, and accept change. Things never stay quite the same, though there’s almost always some continuity. The 95-year-old owner of that candy store on the corner died and the place got turned into a trendy café—but the new owners repainted the bar and shelves with the same old colour scheme, and hung up a picture of the old owner. One friend of Ariane’s was diagnosed with AIDS and died not long after—but another friend was pregnant, and her son grew up into a handsome young man who’s an equal member of their circle.

Director Jeanne Crépeau, who was in the audience, said that this is not really a queer movie. And it’s true, queerness is not the focus. Ariane is a lesbian but has a wide and diverse circle of friends, a couple of whom happen to be gay. Queerness here is not that big a deal, just part of the human experience, another thread in the tapestry of life in the big city.

PS: It’s movies like this that remind me how much I miss hearing Québecois French. The accents, the slang, they were just music to my ears! Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go read some Michel Tremblay and watch a few episodes of La petite vie…

Vancouver Queer Film Festival Review: Jobriath A.D.

I’d never even heard of Jobriath, a stunningly talented glam rock star who burst upon the scene in the early seventies, and disappeared after only a few years. This documentary is a tragic story of sleaze and impossible dreams, and a culture that was still not ready to accept an openly gay rock star.

I’m a man
So I’m an elegant man
I’m a man
Clara bows and open toes
Are what I am

—“I’maman”, Jobriath

I’d never even heard of Jobriath, a stunningly talented glam rock star who burst upon the scene in the early seventies, and disappeared after only a few years. This documentary is a tragic story of glitter and glamour and impossible dreams, and a culture that was still not ready to accept an openly gay rock star.

Jobriath—who went by many names throughout his career, but started his life as one Bruce Campbell, from King of Prussia (really, that’s the town’s name), Pennsylvania—got started in show business as a performer in Hair; angelically beautiful, already an accomplished singer, songwriter, dancer, and musician, he wowed everyone with his looks, charisma and talent. When the show closed he moved on to sing with a Prog Rock band called Pidgeon which only produced one record. A few years later he was discovered by superstar manager Jerry Brandt, who decided to take a chance on this strange, otherworldly creature.

There followed an intense publicity campaign: Jobriath’s face was on buses, in magazines, and on a huge billboard overlooking Times Square. He was so overhyped, in fact, that critics were ready to hate him before they even heard one note of his songs. When his self-titled debut album came out in 1973, the general reaction was either bafflement at the bizarre, eclectic music, or a vicious backlash that was was at least partly based on homophobia. The problem was that Jobriath was the first openly gay rock star, and America was just not ready for that. Big names like David Bowie could present androgynous personas, or drop coy hints about their sexuality. But to be openly, unapologetically gay? That was career suicide in 1973.

Interestingly, the gay press didn’t defend him; gay culture at the time was shifting towards clones and hypermasculinity, and they had no interest in (a) rock, or (b) androgynous rock stars. Though a few reviews were positive, album sales were dismal.

Brandt struggled to keep promoting him; a backing band was formed and they toured, but in the end it was only a couple of clubs instead of a grand spectacle at the Paris Opera House. Jobriath was crushed, after the second album came out to equally horrible sales, Brandt dropped him.

On his own, Jobriath moved into the Chelsea Hotel and reinvented himself as a cabaret singer—his first love had always been the piano—gaining a small but steady following. He also composed songs and numbers for various theatrical productions around town.

Jobriath died of AIDS in 1983, sitting at his piano. His body was reportedly not found for four days, a tragic end to a groundbreakingly creative man. He deserved so much more.

The film concludes with an animation of the planned Paris Opera House show. It starts with Jobriath climbing a scale model of the Empire State Building dressed as King Kong, swatting down some fighter planes, then transforming into Marlene Dietrich while the Empire State Building transforms into a giant penis. Crazy and over-the-top, right? Still, who knows? If there’s enough interest in Jobriath’s art and too-brief career, maybe it could get done someday. It would certainly be a fitting tribute.

Vancouver Queer Film Festival Review: The Green

The Green is a harsh look at small-town homophobia, and how easily acceptance can turn to rejection. Though I found the resolution clumsy and unsatisfying, most of the film was excellently done, gripping and all-too-realistic with well-developed characters.

When Michael, an openly gay teacher at a New England private school, is falsely accused of inappropriate relations with Jason, one of his students, his life quickly goes to hell. He loses his job, is ostracised by the community he thought had accepted him, Daniel his partner of fifteen years (whose business is also in jeopardy) starts to mistrust him a little and eventually moves out, and even their closest friends are hesitant about associating with him in public.

In this film, most of the characters are very human and flawed. Michael is actually innocent of the charges against him, and does honestly care about Jason, who’s dealing with a bad home life (and, it’s later implied, physical/sexual abuse from his stepfather); he desperately wants to stay pure and above the legal fray, only concerned with getting the truth out, refusing to settle with Jason’s family because it would be an implicit admission of guilt… but he’s been keeping a major secret: many years ago when they were just starting to date, Michael cheated on Daniel in a public washroom, with a complete stranger, and was arrested as a result. Michael just wanted to put the sordid episode behind him, but now it’s blowing up in his face in the worst possible way.

In fact, I’d say there’s only unambiguous bad guy here: Jason’s stepfather, who only pressed these charges hoping for a big settlement cheque, and is also a recovering alcoholic who fell off the wagon.

Which leads me to the climax, where The Green morphs into a totally different movie. As a major thunderstorm hits the town Jason, who’d run away from home, goes to visit Michael for unexplained reasons but Michael only yells at him. Understandable, because if Jason had said anything at all denying the charges, nothing would have come of it. Jason freaks and runs back to his house with Michael hot on his trail, grabs a kitchen knife and goes to kill his stepfather. Michael intervenes but in the struggle accidentally throws the man into the knife (still held by Jason), inflicting what looks like a mortal wound.

And the storm blows over, literally and symbolically. The molestation charges against Michael are dropped, no new charges of murder or manslaughter are laid, Jason will stay in school and keep his scholarship, Michael apparently both gets his job back and loses his writer’s block (the very first scene shows him working on a novel and being stuck). Hell, I’m surprised there wasn’t a rainbow shining over the last shot of him walking to school! True, Michael and Daniel do not immediately get back together, but the conclusion gives us hope that this will happen eventually.

Overall, I very much enjoyed The Green. It was engaging and disturbingly realistic, with some quite beautiful New England scenery, and even the jarring conclusion didn’t detract from the appeal. Though it’s not my favourite so far (that honour still goes to Nate & Margaret) I definitely recommend it.

Vancouver Queer Film Festival Review: Nate & Margaret

This story of the friendship between a 19-year-old film student and his 52-year-old neighbour is a definite winner. It’s one part comedy, one part drama, all parts sweet and heartwarming, and my favourite movie of the festival so far.

A big part of its strength is the casting. Tyler Ross, last seen in The Wise Kids, is perfect as the sweet, kind-hearted Nate (and incidentally, seems to have filled out a bit, not that I looked or anything); Natalie West, who I knew way back when from Roseanne, brings the lonely, insecure and cynical Margaret to life like no other.

At first I wasn’t quite sure how to take the characters. Their very first scene, of shopping for weird assorted knickknacks in a thrift store, seemed to peg them both as eccentric loners. But as it turns out, Nate does have a life of his own; it’s Margaret who’s alone, with apparently no other friends but Nate, a dead-end job in a coffee shop, and dreams of doing standup comedy.

It also looked like a sequel of sorts to The Wise Kids, except with a different name for Tyler Ross’s character. And the action takes place in Chicago instead of New York. But, according to the film’s lovely director, Nathan Adloff, who chatted with some of us later on, that part was completely unintentional: Nate was in fact mostly created from his own life experience.

The plot isn’t anything earth-shattering, and I knew almost right away how things would play out: as soon as James turned into a fake, shallow bitch and did not hit it off with Margaret, I knew he and Nate would not stay together, and that he would create a rift between the two friends, leaving them both alone and unhappy, but the rift would be healed eventually, the friendship becoming stronger as a result. But did I care? Nope. I didn’t come for the complex plot or surprising twists; I came for Tyler Ross’s goofy smile, for the repeated warm fuzzies and for the uplifting lesson that things do get better if you trust your friends and your own better nature.

Some more thoughts:

The scene in the diner where James and Nate broke up, and Nate publicly accused James of owning underage porn, was shocking, much more than all the abuse standup comedy jokes, and it snapped me out of the story for a second. If true, it was unnecessary to the story because James was already evil enough. But if Nate made it up (more likely), that was fucking cold, and felt almost out of character even in his emotional state. But then, maybe, no worse than what he said to Margaret later. The horrible thing is, those words might have been at least a little bit honest. I imagine there was a part of him that pitied this strange old lady, was embarrassed by her, and tired of having to explain their relationship over and over.

Another point that bothered me: Given Margaret’s history of abuse and unhappy relationships, and Nate’s own bad relationship, it looks like the movie’s other message could be that Love Hurts? But I don’t think that’s the intent. There’s really nothing to suggest Nate won’t find a worthwhile boyfriend down the line—and Margaret too, why not? Early on her new manager seemed to be gently coming on to her, though that particular plotline was dropped. The movie’s focus is simply on the friendship between the two protagonists, who find joy not in boyfriends but in following their dreams, supporting each other along the way.

And that’s a happily ever after I can totally live with.

Vancouver Queer Film Festival Review: Romeos

This isn’t going to be a long review, since I only managed to catch about half of the movie. I was sitting way too close to the screen and—as I should have expected—I started feeling sick and had to leave. Damn. That’s not how I planned to kick off the festival.

So, Romeos. As I remember Amber Dawn, in her introductory speech, described it as more of a farce. And sure, it’s got some farcical elements—who can forget Lukas at the party going to pee, placing his rubber dick on the bath, then running out in a panic on finding out the bath is occupied? or Fabio stepping out of the car stark naked, only covering his crotch with his shoes?—but overall, the story and character exploration are dead serious. We observe, and empathise with, the little details that go into being a pre-op transman: celebrating your 25^th shot of testosterone, watching your body hair grow, hiding your breasts under layers of baggy clothes, having to pack your jeans, communicating online with other FTMs. And the bigger problems, like having to live in a girls’ dorm because your official paperwork still says you’re female, being afraid of how your lust object will react if he finds out you’re FTM—sadly, I didn’t stay long enough to see that one resolved.

In addition to getting right up close and personal with Lukas, the direction occasionally takes a step back and lets us look through Ine’s eyes—Lukas’ best friend, who’s known him since high school, is understandably both a bit weirded out and fascinated by her female friend turning into this strange other person, one with muscles and pit hair and thicker eyebrows and chin fuzz. She’s definitely supportive but overall a bit clueless about what he’s really going through.

One thing that stunned me (which maybe shouldn’t have, but there you go) is that Lukas is actually played by a transsexual. At first I wasn’t sure, because the actor totally passed, except for the suggestion of breasts, but I couldn’t tell for sure since he always wore clothes to hide his chest. And then, one scene of him shirtless, and I was all, Holy shit, he’s got boobs. An FTM character played by an actual FTM actor? Who’d have thought? But this is the only casting choice that makes sense. Having a cis man play Lukas would have been a cheat.

Pride and Curiosity

Vancouver celebrated Pride this weekend. And that means a lot of things, some familiar and some not.

First, the Davie Street Dance Party. To kick off Pride weekend, the Vancouver Pride Society takes over four or five blocks of Davie Street, puts in a couple of stages with DJs and performers, food and drinks booths, and then fences the whole thing up and charges an ungodly amount of money to get in. Seriously, a lot of people were less than pleased at what they considered a shameless money grab. $20 to basically enjoy what you’d get at any club, except you get a smaller selection of drinks and it closes at 1AM? Yeah…

Still, I went. Got there early when there was still some light out, paid my $20, and wandered around until I ran into friends. Then I ran into some more friends. Hugs, hugs, catching up, wishing each other “happy Pride”—really, the only reason I was out tonight. Then the crowds grew fiercer and the music got louder, and it got a bit less fun. I danced for a bit, but the party was just too exhausting for an introvert like me, and I called it a night around 11:30.

Which was longer than I’ve ever lasted, when I think about it. Once or twice I skipped the whole thing entirely: 2008, especially, because I’d been laid off that day and I just wasn’t feeling sociable. But generally, I just don’t last very long at all; I don’t like the club scene, and the street party is basically like one big open-air club with an outrageous cover price. If I’m not with people I know, or don’t immediately run into them, I’m more likely to ditch the whole thing. So hey, I guess I’m getting more outgoing!

Saturday was the Dyke March. I’d never gone, and I didn’t really have any plans until a friend in the Rainbow Marching Band invited me to tag along. I ended up helping to carry the banner, but I didn’t mind. The Dyke March is a great event, full of energy, very small and informal compared to Sunday’s parade, with much more of a sense of community. Individuals can walk along, groups carry hand-made banners, participants are invited to sign or initial the main banner (they make a new one each year and keep the old ones). No gigantic truck floats for WestJet or Royal Bank or Celebrities. No politicians that I could see, either. It reminded me of Ottawa’s Pride marches when I came out in the early-mid-90’s, back before it got all corporate.

Sunday was the Pride Parade. Corporate or not, you didn’t think I’d miss it, did you? As I’ve done for the last several years (since I moved downtown, in fact) I volunteered walk with the VGVA float; we’d be handing out freezies (insanely popular), suckers (not so much), a few of us would pass balls around, a few more would spray water at the crowd or just wave. Good times. And I got kudos on my control of the ball—because the last thing you do is have it shank off into the crowd.

Dinner, nap, shower, and I was off to the Vancouver Men’s Chorus Big Gay Sing. I’ve been going for the last 3 years (since it started, in fact) and it’s always tons of fun. We get to sing along to classics (the Sound of Music medley is always a favourite) and new material (Lady GaGa, Call Me Maybe) with cute little skits and clever costumes and production numbers.

Then after the show, I hurried home to follow Curiosity’s landing live (well, live minus the light-speed delay). I’d already seen the Seven Minutes of Terror video and knew that as crazy-awesome as this crazy-awesome plan was, it could still fall apart so easily. But that didn’t happen; atmospheric entry happened without a hitch that I could see, everything went perfectly smoothly. And when they received word Curiosity had touched down, the control room just went crazy. Don’t ever think scientists can’t get emotional! This was the culmination of years of work, one of the first steps on the road to the stars.

Then they started receiving images, and the room went fucking nuts again.

It’s times like this I feel Humanity can do something to rise above its present condition, to be more than it is now. People could say that we should hold off exploring the cosmos until we’ve solved our problems here on Earth—but, first, all the deep-space telescopes and Mars landers and particle accelerators only cost a fraction of what we spend on wars or filthy rich CEOs’ tax breaks. Second, endeavours like this give us (or some of us) some much-needed perspective. Astronauts on the moon saw the Earth rise above the Lunar horizon, a pretty swirl of blue and white, no national borders in site. In 1990 Voyager 1 snapped a picture of Earth from 6 billion km, a barely visible blue pixel in the vastness of space.

So yes, Curiosity is important, pun intended. This weekend I celebrated my pride in myself and my beautiful queer community, and I am just as proud of America’s achievements. Here’s to a bright future!

Northern Voice 2012, Part 4: And The Rest

Last but not least, a bunch of talks that didn’t easily fit together:

On Friday Martha Rans of Artists Legal Outreach gave us a brief overview of copyright law in Canada, the why and the how. I learned a few interesting things, such as that you can copyright lighting techniques in photography. Subjects like the Eiffel Tower can’t be copyrighted, but composition and lighting can—in Martha’s words, copyright is not about ideas, it’s about expression of ideas.

And there’s the basics, which still bear repeating: the Web is not public domain. You don’t get to use stuff without attribution or permission. And money is not the issue. Most artists and creators would be perfectly happy with a “This is great! Can I use it if I attribute to you / link back / whatever?” Likewise, creators need to make it easy for people to do this. A “If you like my work, get in touch with me!” message on your blog may prevent people from just lifting your stuff.

This was followed by Jon Newton talking about the defamation case against his old site, p2pnet.net, about which more here. It wasn’t a long talk; Newton isn’t a public speaker, and the merits of the decision were so blindingly self-evident that there wasn’t much point to a Q&A period.

Next, Photocamp! John Biehler gave a little demonstration of light painting (well, not an actual demonstration, though he did have the gizmo in question with him).

Ariane Colebrander gave us some tips on accessories: not lenses or tripods or such, but the bags and packs that you lug it all around in.

Morten Rand-Hendriksen taught us (1) how to shake hands like the Vikings of old, and (2) a few techniques to efficiently blog your photos and publicize them on social networks. He demoed a cool plugin (whose name I forget) that allows you to post your photos on Facebook at the same time as you’re posting them to your blog. Choose the featured image for your post, and it’ll show in the preview in your timeline. You can tag your friends or other pages. Probably lots of other nifty features. This wasn’t directly useful to me since I post my photos on Flickr. Still, a little more SEO wouldn’t hurt…

Syx Langemann gave us a brief tutorial on portrait photography: how to watch out for visual noise, how to use lighting, and most of all that you should respect your subject. “We owe it to the person in front of the camera to create a beautiful & powerful photo.” The story of his great-uncle was especially moving and memorable.

And I don’t remember if it was Morten or Syx who gave us the addresses of a couple of photography blogs. Nevertheless, here they are:

Vivian Meier, a stupendously talented photographer who never showed her work to anyone and only became famous after her death.

yowayowa camera, the blog of a Japanese girl who does “levitation” photography. It’s strange, a little eerie, and absolutely brilliant.

Kemp Edmonds talked to us about lifelong learning. This is about the point that my laptop died, but fortunately I jotted down a few notes on my phone. Very incomplete, but better than nothing, especially since the link I have to his presentation doesn’t seem to work.

Anyway: the key to self-directed lifelong learning is in 6 steps:

Decide what you wat to learn (it has to be something you’ll be passionate about)
Discover your tools: podcasts, videos, lynda.com, Google Scholar, TED, were some of the ideas thrown out by the audience. I loved that Kemp actively encouraged audience participation; in fact, near the beginning of his talk he said something something about looking forward to learning from us. Great attitude!
Find, filter and evaluate all those tools
Who will you learn from? (My notes here mention “the hierarchy of contagiousness”)
Select your method of experimentation. For example, to be a better photographer, post to Flickr and solicit feedback. For me, that would be blogging to hone my voice, and develop themes and plugins to share
Who will you teach? Everybody knows one of the best ways to learn is to teach!

Quote of the day: “You don’t have to know everything, you just have to know that you don’t know everything.”

So, there you go, that was Northern Voice 2012. The quality of speakers was top-notch, I had a great time and learned a lot! Can’t wait for next year!

Northern Voice 2012, Part 3: Voices, Brands and Authenticity

Steffani Cameron dealt with writer’s block for six years ending when a head injury forced her to write to keep her brain active. She was here to tell us about Ripping the Bandaid Off and other tips to find your voice.

Steffani Cameron dealt with writer’s block for six years ending when a head injury forced her to write to keep her brain active. She was here to tell us about Ripping the Bandaid Off and other tips to find your voice. One tool to get your brain started in the morning is writing about what you’re having for breakfast. Or, the “ideas box” where you store your ideas and revisit them when you have the time.

But really, there’s no magic formula. You don’t just sit down and get good, you need to write something every day. But what you shouldn’t do is publish something every day! Be relevant, be researched, be interesting.

It’s a constant struggle, but if you want to get personal, you rip that fucking bandaid off and you keep ripping and digging. Hey, that’s what Shane said too, so you know it’s good advice!

Quote of the day: “The hardest thing in life is to be yourself.”

Getting personal can be hard for other reasons, as Georgia Gaden Jones explains Are you for real? Struggling with blogger authenticity in a time of personal brands and monetization. Georgia is not a blogger herself, though she is an avid reader of blogs and interested in the blogging experience from an academic standpoint. In most academic circles, using your personal voice is frowned upon, though it seems blogging is more and more being seen as inherently collaborative and empowering, especially in feminist academia. As well, until recently, employers were twitchy about bloggers, due to all the (potential) airing companies’ dirty laundry and hanging out with the nerds in IT.

As for authenticity, the real key is independence. Readers have to know that a blogger is speaking for themselves and not their department or manager, or sponsors. According to one focus group Georgia mentioned, the suspicion of commercialisation and selling out is a big worry. Are you upfront about the freebies you receive? Are your product reviews honest or are you being nice for fear of not getting more free stuff? Are you doing product product placement when you shouldn’t be?

More generally, there’s the question of how your personal voice fits with your personal “brand”. A brand needs consistency to be authentic, but people are not consistent. People are messy and self-contradictory sometimes. On the one hand, you don’t want to reveal every single sordid detail of your life. But on the other hand, you can’t lie by omission. And on the third hand, what if your brand has taken control of your blogging life? Georgia mentioned a rep from Mom Central Canada, an outfit that seems to match “mom bloggers” with products to hawk. The catch is that blogger’s brand has to fit with the product’s brand. And once you’re matched, you must apparently “ensure your brand does not conflict with ads on your blog”. Which raises the question: are bloggers just “brands” now, to be matched with other brands? And another question: who really controls the content on your blog, you or your sponsors?

Where’s the authenticity then? Or can we think of authenticity as a commodity, a quality you need for (commercial) success? By creating careful descriptions of a flawed individual that still fits with commercial values?

Troubling questions, for sure, and Georgia is right to be concerned. This isn’t the first time we’ve addressed them at Northern Voice, though. Just last year Morten Rand-Hendriksen discussed his Code of Ethics, which is very journalism-focused—with its emphasis on trustworthiness, separating opinion from fact, and being mindful of your sources—but really applies to any kind of content creation. And let’s be clear, making money—even making a living—from blogging is not necessarily a bad thing, as long as you’re upfront about it.

Quote of the day #2 (I couldn’t find anywhere else to put it): Blogging is not just an extension of yourself, but a construction of yourself, through your connections and your interests.

Northern Voice 2012, Part 2: In Brightest Day, In Blackest Night

Part 2 of my NV12 recaps: productivity, voice, and comics

Mike Vardy‘s talk on Saturday dealt with Better Blogging Productivity. He offered some commonsense tips such as:

Be realistic (or in his words, “get real!”): get clear about what you can and can’t do in the windows of time available to you. If you only have a little bit of time, do simple things like catch up on email or collect ideas. Save the really creative work for when you can focus on it
Build a schedule. In Mike’s words, blog proficiently not prolifically. Start small, get used to a blogging routine, and build up from there.
Avoid distractions (as opposed to disruptions). Distractions are messages, email notifications, anything nonurgent and avoidable.

Commonsense, sure, but this is stuff I definitely need to work on. I don’t have a blogging routine, and as often as not I’ll check my email when that little red circle appears over the icon. Hey, at least I turned off the sound notifications!

Then Mike offered a number of tools to help with this productivity: tasks managers like 30/30, email filters like AwayFind, forced discipline apps like Freedom (on the Mac).

But the kicker to me was when he said, “discipline is not enough. You need willpower.” Mike told the audience that he wears a Green Lantern ring when blogging as a physical focus. Green Lanterns, as everyone knows, are powered by will. And who is Green Lantern’s arch-nemesis, he asked? “Sinestro,” I replied from the front row. And what does Sinestro run on? “Fear,” I replied again, thus outing myself as a big nerd. Bottom line, then: fear impedes willpower.

And you know what? I totally get it. My take on the discipline vs. willpower dichotomy is that the former is going through the motions, tools and habits that you need to internalise until they’re second nature. Willpower, on the other hand, is the clarity of hearing that little voice pushing you to create and excel. Fears, doubts and insecurities definitely get in the way of hearing that voice.

(Incidentally, Mike and I chatted over lunch for a bit, and I learned about the Green Lantern animated series. I watched the entire first season the day after the conference, and I’m here to tell you it’s awesome. I didn’t think I’d be crazy about the CGI animation, but the technology’s come a long way, and the story, characters and action are all fantastic. Any series that stars Atrocitus, Mogo and Saint Walker is tops in my book.)

After lunch, Shane Birley‘s keynote The Evolution of the Blogger’s Voice took us on a whirlwind sci-fi trip through his blogging history. There was no real plot, just a collection of vignettes from 1998 to the present day: his time in Victoria, meeting Allyson, getting laid off from Cayenta, starting Left Right Minds, and the million other projects he’s currently got going.

Some of his posts (especially the early ones) were about looking for vindication, feeling grumpy, feeling tied down, and looking for his voice. And then his voice came, though sometimes it didn’t feel that way. The moral is: you already have a voice, you just have to find it. It may not be through plain text blogs. Try podcasts, vlogs? Keep digging, and you’ll find it.

And here’s what I’m taking from this talk. I’m not sure if this was really Shane’s point, but here goes, my interpretation:

The thing is, discipline will keep your world ordered, and willpower will keep you putting one foot in front of the other, but you need to see where you’re going, or at least hope that the tied-down-ness and the grumpiness will pass, and you will find your voice one day. All will be well.

My personal view is that Fear has many opposites, not just Willpower. Another is Hope. That’s in the comics too, by the way. Blue Lanterns (powered by hope) by themselves are apparently the weakest of the emotional spectrum (I guess reflecting the fact that hope alone is passive and kind of useless). But team them up with a Green Lantern and they boost each other’s power so as to be nigh-unstoppable. Hope and Willpower together are the greatest force in the universe.